On November 22nd, 1909, the Portuguese Foreign Minister called upon Sir Edward Grey, apparently with the object of discussing this question, and in conversation the Foreign Minister informed M. Du Bocage that the information he “had received from private sources placed _beyond doubt_[10] the fact that it had been the custom for natives to be captured in the interior by people who were really slave-dealers; the captured natives were then brought down to the coast and went to work in the Portuguese islands.” On the 26th of October last, Sir Arthur Hardinge, whose intimate knowledge of slavery questions is probably unequalled, informed the Portuguese Minister for Foreign Affairs that when he was in Brussels, he “had heard serious complaints in official circles at Brussels of the way in which slaves were kidnapped by Angola caravans from the Kasai district of the Congo, which shewed that the charges made did not emanate solely from missionaries or philanthropic sentimentalists.” In July, 1909, an exhaustive series of regulations were issued from Lisbon. The 139 articles covered almost every actual and conceivable feature of the whole labour question, but as Mr. Consul Mackie pointedly remarked— “The Angolan native ... is contracted in a wild state under circumstances of doubtful legality, and is so convinced that he is a slave that nothing short of repatriation, which should therefore be compulsory, would serve to persuade him that, at least in the eyes of the law, he is a free agent. It would obviously be useless to argue that the ‘serviçal’ is not a slave merely because he is provided with a legal contract, renewable at the option of his employer, in which he is officially proclaimed to be free.” The evidence, therefore, that the Portuguese colonial labour systems are pure slavery is confirmed (a) In a British Law Court, (b) by the British Foreign Minister, (c) by the British Consul on the spot, and (d) by Sir Arthur Hardinge. Could anyone desire more emphatic evidence than is now provided? and this does not exhaust the available sources, for even the Portuguese themselves have now been forced to admit that the slave-trade is very much in evidence. Writing to Sir Arthur Hardinge on October 23rd last, the Portuguese Foreign Minister admitted that there was— “Slave-traffic with the inhabitants with Luando, in the district of Lunda.... It was ascertained that in reality the Bihean natives were in the habit of settling their debts and disputes by means of ‘serviçaes.’ Two convoys proceeding from Luando were captured, and the serviçaes handed over to the delegate of the Curator concerned, to be retained until claimed by their relatives, to whom the necessary notice was sent.”